The ASPCA, PETA, and several women's-rights organizations protested the move, a NOW spokeswoman saying a bat's cave is "her prerogative, and not in the purvey of any government agency, no matter how fungal they get."

A small riot subsequently erupted at the funeral home, where 4 different people rose in unison, each bearing a written request from the deceased to read the eulogy.

The decedent's will is also a source of contention, and currently being fought by his survivors. Spatharis' ex-wife and step-children contend that (his) codicil that would require them to "...don chicken costumes and then copulate on Mexican national television.", is unlawful, and also indicitave of an unsound mind contemporaneous with the will's final revision.